Saturday, June 27, 2009

Hotdogs

Now that we have two hairless children, our furry ones have been relocated to the great outdoors, er, well, the garage. With summer getting into full swing down here in Texas we had to do something to help keep the dogs cool since they no longer had access to the cool air-conditioning of the indoors. So, we got them their own air conditioner!

It's just a portable unit for now, connected to a somewhat hastily installed dryer vent in the garage door, but it seems to work fairly well. We figured the bottom section of the garage door already had a big hole for the doggy door, so what's one more hole? Yeah, it kinda complicates things if you want to open the garage door, but the big Jeeps rarely get driven at the moment, so it's not really a big issue.

Our eventual plans are to replace the portable unit with a wall-mounted AC/heat unit that should be more efficient (plus it can keep the garage warm in the winter, not that the dogs mind the cold much though). So why didn't we just get the wall unit to start out with you ask? Well, installing the wall unit involves cutting a big hole in the side of the house, through the brick, which is going to require a bit more time and work than I've got available right now and punching a 4" diameter hole through a garage door is quick and easy.

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Banarama

To add to the growing list of fruits and veggies that Jonathan loves to eat... Bananas! He'll eat a whole banana in the blink of an eye, then come back for more! Needless to say, bananas are now a staple of our grocery list.

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"Banana... what banana?"

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"Good banana!"

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"Mmmm... banana"

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"Do YOU want some banana?"

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Yoga time!

Jonathan

Ok, so he's not really doing yoga, my mom just happened to snap a shot right as he was doing whatever it is he's doing, haha.

Friday, June 19, 2009

The Look.

I have a feeling I'll be seeing much more of this as she gets older, haha.

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Tuesday, June 16, 2009

20 months

Jonathan turned 20 months old on Sunday. I can't believe my little man is almost 2 years old!!

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Motor skills

Just in the last week Julianna has started to be able to reach out and grab things around her that she sees -- her blinky car seat mobile thingie, the toys on the exersaucer... and the phone when Jennifer is using it and holding her, haha.

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Monday, June 1, 2009

The latest

For better or worse, there really hasn't been much of noteworthiness going on at the ol' Casa de la West as of late. Jonathan is doing good. He's still not talking but our pediatrician says it's nothing to be concerned about yet. He crawled and walked relatively late but as soon as he started doing it it was as if he'd been doing it for weeks already -- when he walked for the very first time he walked across our kitchen, and his second walk was nearly halfway across of our house. I figure when he decides to finally start talking he'll just bust out in multi-word sentences. I have a feeling we'll be in for a case of "careful what you wish for" when he starts speaking, haha.

And speaking of walking, he's running now. Well, it's really more of a bouncing speed walk than outright running, but the little man can really move! I think I've got some video of him running that I can post up on flickr. He loves for me to run and chase him around the house and backyard.

Julianna is finally sleeping better (again). She seemed to go through phases where she'd sleep good for a week or two, then, not so good, for a week or two. About three weeks ago it was getting really bad though; she wasn't sleeping for more than about two and a half hours at a time at night before waking and wanting to nurse, and this was going on for days. It wasn't that she had her days and nights mixed up, it was that she simply had no night!

After an exhausted Jennifer talked with an OB friend of hers and with our pediatrician, we decided the problem was three-fold: first, Julianna was napping too much during the day, second she was sleeping in the same room with Jennifer, and finally she wasn't going to bed on a full tummy (we think she's more of a "snacker" type eater). Based on that we implemented some changes to Julianna's schedule and her sleeping improved immediately. She went from waking every three hours to only waking up once, quite literally, over night! She only takes two, sometimes three naps during the day now. Her mid morning nap is usually about an hour or so long. Her late afternoon nap usually lasts 2-3 hours, and then she'll usually take a quick 30 minute cat nap in the evening as well. We're keeping her up about an hour later in the evening - not putting her to bed until around 10pm - and instead of Jennifer nursing her last thing, I'm feeding her a bottle of formula and making sure she finishes off at least 3 oz of it. And lastly, Julianna is sleeping in her own room now instead of the pack-n-play in our bedroom. All of this combined has led to both Julianna and Jennifer getting some much needed rest at night.

Oh yeah, she rolls herself over so much in bed now that we have to pile blankets on either side of her when we put her down to nap or to sleep to keep her from flopping herself over and waking up, haha.